Pop Skull (2007)

Director:

Adam Wingard

Writers:

E.L. Katz (writer) and
Lane Hughes (writer) ...

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Pop Skull depicts the lonely and disjointed life of Daniel, a young Alabama pill addict, as his efforts...

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Lane Hughes	...	Daniel
Brandon Carroll	...	Jeff
Maggie Henry	...	Natalie
Hannah Hughes	...	Morgan
Jeff Dylan Graham	...	Matt Tepper
L.C. Holt	...	Victor
E.L. Katz	...	Eddie
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jennifer Price	...	Mom
Debbie Stefanov	...	Abby
Adam Wingard	...	Raymond

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Company:

Hunter Films

Trivia:

The scene where the characters of Jeff, Morgan and Daniel go fishing was filmed 14 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. Cast had to wrap up and leave because the locations were in South Alabama; dangerously close to the coast.

An honest examination of a place we've all been...

If you can remember your first heartache, you're going to understand Pop Skull.

I never had a drug period and I've no interest whatsoever in ghosts but anyone who assumes these are prerequisites are really missing the point. Pop Skull isn't just a drug movie, or a ghost story, or, for the matter, a post-love story. It's all three, interwoven in a subtly complex mosaic of feelings that anyone human will be able to relate to on some very relevant level.

Lane Hughes stars as a character loosely based on himself in a performance as brave in its emotional vulnerability as Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces or Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. These comparisons aren't exaggerations, either. Hughes has made an impressive film debut that warrants comparisons to the best.

Adam Wingard directed, co-wrote, shot and edited the film and he did an impressive job in every category. It's stylized with an experimental and abrasive edge that doesn't distract from its potent content, much like a song by Xiu Xiu (who are appropriately a part of the wonderful soundtrack.) Anyone who throws out that cliché "MTV editing" complaint are obviously oblivious to what's on MTV these days and the "head trip movies" of the '60s that serve as this film's true grandparents. So my question is: since when does conventional film-making imply superiority to something attempting to try something else?

Pop Skull's greatest success is in all its confusion. Hughes and Wingard aren't sharing some great truth they've figured out. They're showing how confusing human feelings can be and usually are, and very few films are bold enough to admit confusion on this scale.

I haven't bothered going into plot details, and I don't much see a point. This isn't a film about a three act story, it's a film about a place we've all been. There isn't an agenda film exploiting our emotions to get its point across. This is a film that strangely comforts you; it assures you that the world around you is populated with people just as susceptible to disappointment and self-destruction as you. And maybe that's where the real horror is.

In a time when things as vapid as Garden State and as stupid as Saw are marketed as independent films, it's nothing short of a miracle to see something emerge that is both original and honest; a film that was made for the catering budget of those "low-budget" movies. I have no hesitations in suggesting that Pop Skull deserves rank with the films of Cassavetes or a film as influential, innovative and important as Easy Rider. This is a work of art that transcends the escapist tendency of horror in general.

It's a film that will haunt you.